Charles Morgan Olmsted (January 19, 1881 – 1948) was an American aeronautical engineer. Aeronautics Charles M. Olmsted held a Ph.D. in astrophysics and became an aeronautical engineer in the early 20th century. When he was 14, he designed and built a glider, one of the first models ever tested in the United States. In the fall of 1909 Olmsted led an attempt by the Pitts company to begin the production of airplanes in contrast to the steam tractors they were producing. He began in 1909 by designing and constructing a minimum-induced-loss propeller and then in 1910 a prototype plane of solid construction, as opposed to the ultra-light construction of the day, a plane which would have inherent stability and an efficient stream-lined profile. Olmsted minimum-induced-loss propellers set many records in climb rates, speed and weight carried aloft in flights of the Curtiss built flying boats, Edith and America, in 1914, and various military craft during 1917 and 1918. Because they increased efficient by 20% over the standard design, Olmsted minimum-induced-loss propellers were also used on the first leg of the historic Transatlantic flights of the NC planes in 1919. Charles Olmsted can be ranked as America’s first scientifically-trained aeronautical engineer in the modern sense of the term: one who applies mathematical methodology to the scientific study of air flow, propeller design and to the analysis of the strengths and weights of materials to design and construct aircraft. Olmsted was not the first in the US to design, build and fly a glider, which he did at the age of 13 in 1894, but he was probably the first child to do so. In 1894 Charles Olmsted designed and built a glider in which during the following year he made the longest glider flight ever achieved in America till that time. Most noteworthy, beginning in 1910, Olmsted was the first to design and construct a streamlined monocoque aircraft and Olmsted was certainly the first to develop the minimum-induced-loss propeller. In 1894 and 1895, Charles Olmsted attended Harvard University. After Harvard, Olmsted attended Göttingen University and Wilhelm Institute Bonn from 1902 to 1906, obtaining his PhD from Bonn. In 1908, Olmsted began experiments and theoretical investigations into minimum-induced loss propellers. Only five years after the first successful powered flight of the Wrights, Charles Olmsted developed the initial equations describing the blade shape and pitch to achieve the maximum attainable efficiency from an